I may get slammed for this...

[Sierra]

*shrug* relationships have different levels of intimacy just as relationships aren't all the same. For me, it DID cement us as being in a relationship as we decided to be exclusive, we both knew we had strong feelings for one another, had managed to cram in a lot of time together in a short amount of time pushed only by our attractive and want to learn more about the other, etc. It's fine that others do not feel the same but don't dismiss someone else's feelings for their partner based on your own perception of what makes a relationship.

Nobody is. We're just stating our opinions.

[Minerva]

A relationship is decided between the people in it.

I met my SO online and knew him for a couple of years before we got together. He couldn't hide himself online because we were both part of a TV show fandom and it's a pretty small world. We all go to conventions and everyone is a friend-of-a-friend at the very least, many of us have met, and we've all talked online for years. So even though it took us a couple of years to meet, I knew my SO was who he said he was. That trust was already built into our friendship.

We didn't enter into our relationship until we met. That's just how it worked for us. But our case is a bit odd in that he was married the entire time we were friends. Had he not been married, I don't know that we wouldn't have jumped into a relationship before meeting. We had such a connection even before we met. We called each other best friends even before we met. That's certainly a relationship, if not a romantic one. If I knew him well enough to call him best friend, I don't think it's much of a leap to think we would have eventually come together as partners, had circumstances been different.

That said, even though we've only been romantic partners for 3 months, our relationship is based on a foundation we've spent years building. There was an instant connection from the moment we started talking, but a "connection" is not a relationship. It's a start. And if you make it into a relationship, you still have to do the work to build it up. I guess that's the thing I don't understand about "young" relationships -- even if you click perfectly, if you've only been together a month or two, how can you be so certain it's not an infatuation? If you've only known each other a few months and have never met, how can you be sure this other person is The One? When I met my SO, every feeling I thought I had for him was obliterated by new, stronger feelings. Anything I was uncertain of became certain. All doubts faded. Meeting added so much more to our relationship, and while I respect and believe people can fall in love online, you really don't know the depth of that love until you meet. Just my opinion of course.

[Rosebud]

Nobody is. We're just stating our opinions.

I know, and I'm not saying anyone has to change their opinion. Just that because this is a discussion based around emotion, that is often very sensitive for many people, to understand that others may believe differently. As I stated in the other thread, I understand your views even if I don't 100% agree with them so I'm not going to try to change your mind because I know you have your reason for your opinions just as I do myself.

[Zephii]

I didn't read the replies, sorry if I missed something.

Technically, we have relationships with everyone, all the time, every day. You and I have a relationship. It isn't much of one, but we're in contact so that's that.
I have a relationship with my sister, my fiance, the blonde chick at the bank, my sister's dog and my enemy. A relationship is the state of being connected to someone or something. Trust does not either make or break that connection on it's own. So relationships start the moment you have contact. It's the type of relationship that differs.

Sometimes it's hard to tell the type of relationship. For months and months Obi and I had some kind of relationship, it was sexual and more emotional than friendship, but we weren't committed to each other, we didn't consider ourselves as partners. Sometimes people lable the relationship as more than it is, or less than it is for whatever reason.

On trust.. I really think that depends on personalities. I trust everyone at the outset, more or less. I don't go handing out my pin numbers to the person I just met, but blind stupidity aside, I'm not the kind of person who expects others to earn my trust. I give it freely until it's broken.
At times throughout my relationship with Obi he has broken that trust and I've withheald information from him for whatever reason - that didn't mean we weren't still in a relationship it meant we needed to work on something within that relationship. See?

[Ms.Justine]

*shrug* relationships have different levels of intimacy just as relationships aren't all the same. For me, it DID cement us as being in a relationship as we decided to be exclusive, we both knew we had strong feelings for one another, had managed to cram in a lot of time together in a short amount of time pushed only by our attractive and want to learn more about the other, etc. It's fine that others do not feel the same but don't dismiss someone else's feelings for their partner based on your own perception of what makes a relationship.

I knew this time would come. I completely apologize if it came across as dismissive to any other opinions. It's just what I believe makes a relationship. You and your SO very well could have felt that you truly we're in a relationship just by saying we're exclusive and that's awesome. But you must have taken time previous to saying we're boyfriend and girlfriend to feel comfortable enough to make it exclusive, thus making it a relationship in my opinion. But hey, to each their own.

edit: I also stated that it's somewhere in between. Kind of a murky zone lol. But to put it simply I think in the simplest terms Trust + Comfort/Familiarity + Love = Relationship and I don't think that just comes from putting a title on it. I'm sorry for those who I offend but I completely agree with Sierra. But the trouble with that is there are soooo many other categories that fall under those notions. Ah...philosophy..gotta love hate relationship with it.

[Bethypoo]

I agree that it is different for everyone at various stages of life. The same way I though I was in love in middle school but really had no idea what i was talking about. I think a relationship, in the terms of an intimate relationship, is established when you have decided to commit to eachother. My SO and I told eachother we wanted to be together. A few days later we asked if we wanted to make a go of 'US' and be committed to eachother, no other dates ect... And that is when our relationship started.

In more general terms I think relationships are formed of trust. Because the strength of many relationships including say a friendship is made weaker when there is no trust.

[Mara]

I just try to be a realist. I've never been one to get caught up in romantic notions or ideas. I've seen so many of my friends get hurt time and time again because of this. You aren't going to marry every man/woman/person you meet.

I'm very much into romantic notions and ideals. It's how I live my life. It's worked out splendidly so far actually. I find it's the people who are always so realistic and so rational that are quite often unhappy. Life doesn't take so many requirements or prerequisites. Life just takes living. But that's just my two cents.

Ideally, I wouldn't consider a 'relationship' a relationship with someone you've never met. BUT life isn't ideal, in many cases, people here can't meet their SO for long periods of time. During that time, they are monogamous to that person, talk with that person frequently in which you gather a lot of knowledge about the person, and feelings develop and blossom. Just because you don't call a spade a spade doesn't make it any less a spade.

In my case, I simply believe all you need to be in a relationship with a person is a very basic idea as to who that person is, some feelings of some sort, and the agreement that you are in a relationship. Trust is something that is built. I'm not one to trust anyone explicitly after a few short months or even a year. I've been with my SO for two years now and I'm not fool enough to think that I know him well enough to trust him explicitly. I trust him not to cheat, steal, or lie to me, but even that isn't set in stone.

I left my ex [who I dated for three years and was engaged to] for my SO after never having met my SO in person and actually after only three weeks of knowing my SO online. I knew instantly he was "perfect" for me and even wrote about it on the day I met him though I did not plan on pursuing a romantic relationship with him at the time. I moved to my SO after two and a half months of knowing him and maybe 3 visits. I was working full time then and had the money and the time to see him more regularly. We then lived together for a year and now have been in a relationship since the day we met in person some 25+ months ago.

I'm not quite sure what all I knew about him when I moved to him, I'm sure not a lot I mean I had only known him for 2 1/2 months, but it was enough and I've never regretted any of it.

[Rugger]

IA relationship is the state of being connected to someone or something.

This might be my new favorite quote. EVER.

I agree with Zephii wholeheartedly. You are always in a relationship with a person. Always. It can be a romantic relationship, a friendship, a work relationship or simply any kind of connection to another person.

I also agree that "relationship" is different for every couple. No one is right or wrong.

[ClipitsWings]

Personally I still put my "relationship" in quotation marks as it's not officially anything. I started talking to him really young, I mean, even though I hate people knowing my age in this context (because it instantly implies ignorance and stupidity), I was 14 when we started talking, and he was turning 15. I must be weird or something, because it took me 8 months to admit that I even was considering admitting to liking him. I certainly wasn't looking to get myself stuck on a guy and not get to meet for years and years and years. But we talked constantly, and trusted eachother with our thoughts. It was stated that he would date me if we were physically closer, but him having opportunities to experience physical relationships and me not wanting to get used for sex (as has been my school's theme in all my experiences), doesnt make anything look promising....
So years later, we still cant meet soon enough, but we still talk almost everyday. It was only approaching mid second year that awkward flirting with underlying feelings became well stated. Later still, the word love was taken in. We only say it when we mean it with our whole hearts.
Haven't met, and it might take 4 more years to, but we're in a good place, even if we're not in a relationship.

Am I missing opportunities by sticking with this? Sure. I won't get to have a romantic prom night or a chance to...what? It's not a big deal to me. I know who I am. I don't need to experiment with these random social rituals to know my preferences and feelings.

Is it frustrating anyway that I'm going to shove all my teenage dating experience into a week, if he can manage a visit? Shit yeah. But it's going to be so much better than some scattered heartless flings.

Does my mom wish I would move on? Most the time, yes.

Do I see a concrete future together? Not really. I've got a plan for 2014, but after that, what happens will happen.

I'm 17 and I love this guy, who I've known for over 3 years, with everything I have. It's not officially anything, but judging by how seriously we take this, I'd call it a relationship.

However! I'm in no way normal. I'm more of a sloth drowning in molasses when it comes to matters of the heart (because I need to be sure of myself). Yet, by contrast, I have a friend who just started an LDR, and one who wants to. The former claimed they were bf/gf after two weeks online. Personally, I don't see it being a solid deal based on what I know; in name it is a relationship, but it takes more for you to feel it deeply enough.
The latter girl I mention to address whether or nit LDRs are cool now to the populace, no. They're not. For me it was my favorite accident, the former girl seizes her opportunities when she can, and this last girl, she knows they suck. She'd much rather have a rl bf, but she..to put it bluntly... is desperate right now. I don't think anyone goes in thinking about how great it is to be alone. Def not as something acceptable or "cool." most kids don't even seem to understand the concept (based on at least 5 very confused faces that come to mind). It's still new and weird.

[Sora1101]

Being only 17 myself, my "relationship" started when I was 15. I defined it as a relationship because we knew we wanted to be with each other, to learn and grow together as people, to trust in one another and share our hopes and dreams in ways that friends and family can't do. That is what I define a relationship as and at 15 I knew he was the oneI wanted to do that with, I wanted him to be the one I would go through life with.

But whether you meet people online or out in real life it's still social interaction, they're just two completely different ways to interact. While I'm not saying that meeting people only online is a good thing it's helpful to us teens who are less confident or extroverted, I know myself I have a hard time opening up to people in real life where as if I'm online I'm not afraid to express myself. There's a certain freedom that comes with meeting people online, they don't judge you the same way, and if they do you don't have to care or talk to them ever again, it's a good way to grow and find your sense of self without having to worry about public appearances.

[Dziubka]

I agree with Sierra and LeilaniJoi.

Talking romantic relationships strictly (I don't think LeilaniJoi had in mind the relationships you have with your boss or brother).
Exclusivity doesn't make a relationship, just because you only talk to one person, doesn't mean you're in a relationship with them. Lots of people have romantic relationships that are not exclusive (polyamoury (sp?), polygamy) and lots of exclusive -erm- invovlements aren't relationships. It's obviously different for everybody and if someone thinks that because some guy/girl at a club smiled at them, they're now boyfriend and girlfriend, then so be it. It's just not my definition and I might not call them a couple.
I don't dismiss anyone's feelings. It's just my definition. If I think that €100 is a lot of money and someone else thinks it's peanuts then it doesn't mean either of us is wrong, we just look at it differently.

Taking the example from another thread, if I was scared to give someone my home adress, I wouldn't consider then person my boyfriend. I don't think I could consider myself in a relationship (the romantic boyfriend-girlfriend-type) with someone whom I only knew online. I've really grown close and been great friends with people I only knew online and one time I guess I even had a little crush on someone like that.
But it's not only online relationships. My friend is studying abroad for one year right now and she already has "an Ex". She had known this guy for not even a week and considered him her boyfriend. Another friend had a smiliar story at the same time.
Maybe I'm taking things too seriously, but I wouldn't have considered that a relationship if I had been one of the people invovled.

My boyfriend and I dated for over a month, before we considered us to be couple. And even that in my eyes was sort of stretching the term. Had we 'broken up' in the first two months, I wouldn't consider him an ex now. It wasn't like one day we decided "Hey, let's be boyfriend and girlfriend" it was more like... at some point we both realised that what we have is probably a relationship and we started introducing each other as "my boy-/girlfriend" and making plans for when we have to be long distance (we were CD in the beginning).
I don't really have a set point at which I consider [something] a relationship, it's more of a transition. You meet, you go on dates/meet up more often, you get to lknow each other better, you kiss or whatever, you meet each others friends, possibly family and somewhere along this (which doesn't necessarily have to be in that order!) you start to be in a relationship. It's a process...

Someone here said that they didn't like "dating". Now I don't know if it's because I'm European and we don't have the same dating culture that the US seems to have. But what is dating other than meeting up with someone you like/want to be romantically invovled with? How can you not like that?! What am I missing here?

[Engel]

For me, i never would consider it a real relationship before meeting in person and at least kissing or something, and someone asking oficially for the other to be girlfriend/boyfriend. before that, there is flirtting, infatuation, but for me, it would never be a relationship.

[Laura_N]

We're not in a relationship, but that's the easy way to call it over here. It's easy to call her my SO and it's easy to say that we are together. We are together, but it's so complex that I use the term relationship - it's simply easier than trying to explain the thing we have. For me, this feels natural, because there hasn't been any "I love you"s yet, and because I don't want to make it official before I get to know her better in person. There's also not as much trust from her side as I could hope. For some people some other way works well, but this is how we go.

So what is it? We have plans together. We don't date other people, we're there just for each other. Our friends know about us. We have agreed it's dating, but it's so much more than that. It's somewhere between dating and a relationship, but what it isn't for sure is casual dating. We've known each other for a year, and we're taking it slow. She calls me with cute nicknames, one of them being her semi-gf. Somebody else would find this offending, but I took it as a huge compliment from her, because I knew she likes to be careful. It's not just flirting or being only friends... It's complicated, but it feels right.

So what we have isn't really a relationship. It includes some of the things you have in a relationship, but like I said, there is still for example some trust missing. It's only something time will tell. I know this probably sounds very messed up to the rest of you, but it's a thing between two people, and it works for us for now.

[Malaga]

Well I think the term 'relationship' implies lots of action and reaction over time, so personally I don't think it's something you can decide on the spot, ie you go on a first date with someone, it goes great and so you decide from now on you're in a relationship. IMO you have to be a couple before you acknowledge you are.

However, I think it is important to make that specific decision at some point, or rather acknowledgment that the relationship you have with someone is indeed a relationship. It means accepting responsibility you have to each other as a couple and stating your intent to support each other. A sort of promise if you like. You can't promise to love and be with them forever, but you can promise to give your best to make it happen. I wouldn't call it a relationship with anyone who is unable to make that acknowledgement, no matter how much of a couple we already are.

Online relationships are tough to talk about because there are so many people here with complex and loving relationships with their SOs whom they've never met in person. It is different for everyone and that's OK. Personally I wouldn't be able to call someone my boyfriend until I knew them in all aspects. You get to know someone intellectually and emotionally through the Internet, but the physical aspect is lacking. No matter how amazingly close you are in your hearts and minds and how much you trust each other, your bodies still don't know each other and there's no making up for that. My boyfriend and I were effectively a couple before we became official, but we didn't consider it a relationship until we met in person, and that was the right way to go (for us).

As for dating, I've noticed in American culture it's normal to date different people simultaneously until a certain point when you decide to be exclusive with someone. In my culture, and I think it's prevalent in Europe too, exclusivity is implied from the start. If you set up the first date with someone, it means you dropped interest in anyone else and not going to date others unless this doesn't work out. And let alone a second or third date. I would never go on a second date with a guy if I knew he was also dating other girls.

[CanadianGirl]

As for dating, I've noticed in American culture it's normal to date different people simultaneously until a certain point when you decide to be exclusive with someone. In my culture, and I think it's prevalent in Europe too, exclusivity is implied from the start. If you set up the first date with someone, it means you dropped interest in anyone else and not going to date others unless this doesn't work out. And let alone a second or third date. I would never go on a second date with a guy if I knew he was also dating other girls.

I find it damn strange too (grew up in Canada if it makes a difference). My SO is my first relationship (No real dating, to be honest. I was waiting until college to start seeing guys romantically and he snatched me right up lol). I remember, in high school, when this one guy asked both me and this friend of mine out at pretty much the same time. We were both completely outraged! My friend told him off and then he proceeded to ask her advice in how to snag me instead. He probably thought he was doing it right, but I thought he was a major creep.

In my books, it's not normal to pursue more than one person at a time. I'm perfectly capable of being attracted to 20 guys simultaneously, but actual courtship is exhausting..